Puzzle speed

bluewolf

shinnaruto said:

I think that we have gotten around to the discussions of bringing back Heroics. Back in days of yore, Heroics was a PVE that was made to challenge players.

I worry about SCL10 never coming out. I do not know what the figures look like, but is the game still growing or shrinking player base wise? this would mean stretching out the base even further than it is now. I want it to, but I do not know if it will ever come to pass.

I am trying to figure out the best way to present the data, but I have been tracking PVE brackets for 3 months now and it certainly isn't growing.  I'd probably say it's basically steady in terms of high end player counts.

But the top SCL (9) is consistently about 30% higher than SCL7.  So my gut is that you have a lot of players who have been here for a very long time and that the up and coming group is shrinking as the 4 transition has gotten significantly harder to pull off (and I would argue absolutely requires some money spent, unless you are extremely knowledgeable and patient about your performance and how to maximize your efforts).

I think we all need to stop thinking SCL10 will happen.

purplemur

OP: I think that golden mean amount of time to achieve pleasure is perhaps a more staccato rhythm than just plugging away at 72 2 minute puzzles. I know my focus on the game is not steady and then exhausted, sometimes I put the phone down mid match and TCB, then come back refreshed, sometimes I zone out on the middle grind where its a lot of 2 minutes ones but mostly self sufficient- just make the best match and watch netflix variety, sometimes I am all excited for the next days chapter because I love to spend deep thought on the 5e. 
All these different notes in the right combination and Flow is achieved. I agree that sometimes those early nodes are sour notes and break the fun of the game and the awful cacophony of the reqd unlock the map node can be awful like Phish warming up. 
I value the pace and timing of a map very much when it comes to personal appreciation of level design. 

But Im not addicted and don’t proscribe to the idea that the want/got is a need based relationship yet.

ThaRoadWarrior

I would also propose that you at least need some easy, mid, hard difficulty curve to let you know that your roster has, in fact, improved. If the mean level of difficulty was always commensurate with your roster, you'd flatten out the feeling of progression. the classic way to show this has historically been present something as a boss before you're ready, then eventually it becomes something you can defeat trivially any time you want, with some new more difficult thing in it's place.

The thing about MPQ at the 5* tier is that there are 2 significant force multipliers in play in the form of Okoye and Kitty who are way out of proportion to other characters when it comes to just winning hard matches at all, then you of course have Thanos for winning matches quickly on the other end. You either scale the whole end game to those characters, thus locking out anyone who doesn't have them, or you expect that people who do have them can trivially burn through what you present to them as outliers. I'm not sure how ubiquitous they are within the player base to make a decision one way or the other. I guess you could remove those characters from play via a nerf or something as well, deal with the fallout from that, and see where the dust settles.

shinnaruto

Imagine them nerfing 5*s (plural) from the meta or just removing them. The fallout from that would be insane. At that point, why even bother with 5 stars? 

They are in a difficult spot: making the game more palatable for entry level players, transitional players in the middle, and your top players. All 3 have such different issues/needs that you cannot really help all in one measure. Also, if you add something to help one slice of the player base, it usually causes disruptions and/or complaints from the others.

Add something challenging for top players, the middle and bottom feel locked out.
Add something for the middle (bishop), the top players have their grievances.
I cannot see anything wrong with the bottom, they just have a hell of a slog.

Xair

i think fixing the current 5* meta isn't possible because it will raise hell from players.
but these ideas can be applied to a new 6* meta, building it right and maintaining it.
the dev can close the 4* which is already large enough and only continue developing 5* and start creating new 6*.
thus keeping the 5* balanced won't be so much of an issue if they manage to maintain a balanced 6* roster.

Bowgentle

Xair said:

i think fixing the current 5* meta isn't possible because it will raise hell from players.
but these ideas can be applied to a new 6* meta, building it right and maintaining it.
the dev can close the 4* which is already large enough and only continue developing 5* and start creating new 6*.
thus keeping the 5* balanced won't be so much of an issue if they manage to maintain a balanced 6* roster.

Devs have said that there will be no 6* characters.
Supports were their glorious alternative.

shinnaruto

Bowgentle said:

Supports were their glorious alternative.

This made me laugh a little.